


heartache bloom

by textbookchoices



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Torchwood
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:15:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27448465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/textbookchoices/pseuds/textbookchoices
Summary: “What about you?”Mr. Stark looks at Jack, eyes twinkling like he knows something Peter doesn’t, and says, “Oh, I’ve got plans.”
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Peter Parker, Jack Harkness/Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36
Collections: Flash With Benefits





	heartache bloom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LearnedFoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LearnedFoot/gifts).



> Main ship is Peter/Tony.

Peter bites his lip, breathing slow and easy as he stares into his own reflection.

His hair is—it’s okay. Kind of floppy, but he hadn’t wanted to use too much gel and look like one of those guys from the music videos Aunt May sometimes has on while she’s spring cleaning. His teeth are clean, and his breath smells like fresh mint toothpaste despite all the sprite he’s been drinking tonight, just to have something to do with his hands.

The suit he’s wearing probably costs a pretty penny, a gift from Mr. Stark himself. _You have to look the part at these events or they’ll all turn into sharks._ Peter didn’t mind Mr. Stark buying him the suit—he really, really doesn’t mind—but he _is_ kind of nervous he’s going to end up spilling something all over it, ruining it and embarrassing himself and Mr. Stark in front of all the fancy, rich people he’s supposed to be helping Mr. Stark impress.

Mr. Stark had invited him to this thing on a whim, he’s pretty sure. At least, it had felt kind of last minute a few days ago when Mr. Stark suggested he come to the party mid-experiment, and had sent Peter out with a nice personal shopper named Candace (and Happy, glowering the entire time while he waited for them to finish shopping) the very next day to buy a suit—a _tailored_ suit that he didn’t actually end up with until Mr. Stark showed up at the apartment earlier today, suit in hand and an expectant look where he tilted his sunglasses suggesting they were going to be late if Peter didn’t get a move on.

Peter had followed Mr. Stark around, watching the billionaire schmooze other billionaires into donating their money to various relief and aid programs, or invest in science programs and politically relevant initiatives that only sometimes had to do with the Avengers and other superpowered beings.

At one point, Mr. Stark had cited a need for a break in Peter’s ear, and had dragged him onto the floor where people were dancing in fancy suits and dresses. Peter’s entire face had heated up, and he’d stepped on Mr. Stark’s toes twice—though Mr. Stark had just laughed instead of wincing, saying, “What, they don’t teach you kids how to dance in school anymore?”

Peter had taken a three-week unit on the _Cha-Cha-Cha_ in ninth grade, but somehow, that doesn’t seem like what Mr. Stark is talking about, and he hadn’t bothered to mention it. He’d been too busy just trying to keep his feet moving anyway. Mr. Stark’s hand had sat low on his back, warm and solid, leading him through a soft, shuffling dance, his mouth quirked up in a happy—or amused, anyway—grin.

Peter had been flushed and half-hard by the end of the dance, and had excused himself to the restroom. There, he pressed his hands to the cold marble of the sink, then splashed a bit of cool water on his face, willing it to go back to being a normal, non-tomato-like color.

He keeps breathing, staring at his own face.

Despite all the boring parts—talking to older people about his grades and plans for college after Mr. Stark introduces him as, “The best and brightest intern I’ve got, and he’s only sixteen. This kid is going places, just you wait,” was only fun the first two times he had to say the exact same things and listen to the exact same head patting platitudes in return with a polite smile on his face the entire time—this had been one of the best he could remember. It almost felt like, well, like it could be… something.

Not a date, obviously.

But Mr. Stark had invited him as his plus one, so—

Kind of like a date?

A prelude to what could be a date, maybe, in the future when Peter is older. More than half of the really old guys here— _way_ older than Mr. Stark—have young twenty-something-year-old girls with them and they’re all _definitely_ on dates.

And he thinks Mr. Stark might be interested. Or, well, could be. If Peter were just a little older.

Peter wipes his hand off on a towel—fabric, given to him by a guy just standing there in the entrance of the bathroom—and goes back out into the party.

It still seems to be going strong. People are dancing or sitting at the bar, or standing in various clusters all around the room with wine glasses in their hands, chatting away about this and that. Peter scans the room for Mr. Stark, and it only takes a minute to spot him standing next to the bar, leaning up against it, a glass of something amber-colored in his hand. Peter takes a step forward, then stutter-stops in his tracks when he sees Mr. Stark throw his head back and laugh, something more _natural_ and _real_ than Peter’s seen him hand out all night.

And the man in front of Mr. Stark reaches over, sliding his tie through his hand, dragging his fingers down the silky red fabric with a not-so-subtle tug.

Something hard sticks in Peter’s throat, but he makes his way over to them anyway. Mr. Stark spots him coming, and his eyes light up as he reaches over and touches Peter’s shoulder, pulling him in as he says, “Kid, hey, come here. I want you to meet an old friend.”

Peter looks at him. He’s dressed nice, but not overly so. He has a big smile, and kind eyes, and Peter really, really doesn’t like him, which isn’t fair. He’s probably a great guy.

“Hey,” the guy says, holding out a hand that’s rough like he works with his hands regularly—like Mr. Stark does, like Uncle Ben used to. “I’m Jack.”

Peter shakes his hand, raised to be polite no matter what. “Peter Parker,” he says, and he’s going to ask how he and Mr. Stark know each other, he is, but before he can, Mr. Stark says, “So, hey, kid, Happy’s here with the car. He’s going to get you home.”

Peter glances toward the exit where Happy is standing, glowering at the people passing him like he thinks they’re all security threats. Peter looks back at Mr. Stark.

“What about you?”

Mr. Stark looks at Jack, eyes twinkling like he knows something Peter doesn’t, and says, “Oh, I’ve got plans.”

Peter nods, and his fingers twitch as he says goodbye, Jack smiling at him with some kind of—a fond inkling on his face, and Mr. Stark saying, “See you in the lab on Tuesday, kid,” like Peter doesn’t know exactly what Mr. Stark’s plans are.

He gets in the backseat of Happy’s car and presses his forehead to the cold glass window, watching the buildings and the lights and the people flash past as Happy starts to drive.

Next time, maybe.

He hates being sixteen.

Six weeks later, aliens attack New York, and half the world turns to dust.

Including Peter.

Then he comes back, and for ten wonderful, amazing minutes, Mr. Stark is alive too.

Then he isn’t.

The party is for MIT graduates.

The music is loud, the lights are bright and dark in turn, and Peter is sitting at the bar, drinking a rum and coke. He’s actually old enough to drink now, which is nice—drinking legally is a lot easier than sneaking around or using Ned—who turned twenty-one a whole eleven months before Peter—to buy the alcohol before they drank alone in their dorm room.

Peter is a college graduate now, and an Avenger besides—not that he’s done a lot of Avenging lately, what with moving to Boston and signing his life away to the combination of coffee, ramen cups, cheap BIC pens, online textbooks and an unholy promise to study more than he sleeps, plus the rare hour of free time spent chasing down purse thieves and, occasionally, a bank robber or something more serious.

He’d only had to make up one midterm because of Spider-Man stuff, and luckily, since his secret identity got blown back when he was seventeen, his professor was willing to _let_ him make it up after seeing him save a tour bus from slamming into Trinity Church (only one tiny little cross got knocked off the roof by a bazooka—totally not Peter’s fault) on the news.

He drains his glass—it’s his third, but alcohol doesn’t do much for him unless he drinks and smokes at the same time. Not that he does that often; he can’t really afford to, what with how little free time he has as it is, but sometimes, if he needs it in order to stop his brain from… thinking too much.

Kind of like now, to be honest.

Aunt May had come to graduation ceremony, and that was good. She’d hugged him, and cried a little, in that happy way she has, looking so proud and pleased and with Happy smiling right next to her.

Happy had taken him aside, at the end, and said, “Hey, Peter. Tony would have been proud.”

Peter had smiled back and clutched Tony’s glasses when he’d turned around, refusing to cry in front of Aunt May. It had already been four and a half years.

Peter sighs and motions the bartender to give him another drink.

This was supposed to have been a good party. Something fun, to celebrate four years of hard work, sleepless nights working on a thesis and getting back early onset carpal tunnel. But Ned and Betty snuck off over an hour ago to have sex in a coat closet—apparently it’s a thing on Betty’s bucket list that she’s been into lately, and Ned wasn’t about to say no, even if it did mean missing his own MIT graduation party—and Peter is too lost in his own grief to be celebrating anything on his own.

He feels a warning flare up, and turns just as a man with dirt on his face and windswept hair sits next to him, nodding to the bartender for a drink of his own.

“Well, that was a bit of a rough one,” the man says, turning to grin widely at Peter. “Who knew saving the world could be so messy? Don’t worry, nobody got permanently hurt. More or less.”

Peter scowls at him over the rim of his glass. He’s not in the mood for this at all.

“I wasn’t worried,” Peter mutters under his breath. He takes a drink when the bartender gives him his glass, intending it to be an obvious dismissal. His head is starting to pound from the combination of the lights and the music and the alcohol. He should probably just leave.

There’s a moment when the man just watches him, something sad in his face, before he says, “You know, I knew Tony.”

Peter jerks slightly on the barstool. If he didn’t have such natural, instinctive balance, he might have fallen over out of surprise. Not surprise that the man knew Tony—surprise that he’d actually brought it up. Surprise that he recognized Peter’s current state of mind, somehow knowing Peter was wallowing about Mr. Stark even though it’s been ages since they’d last met, ages since Mr. Stark had sacrificed himself— _unfair, unfair, unfair, Peter wants to scream_ —to save the entire universe.

It seems like a good deal on paper, and if Peter could just shut off that part of him that—

He clutches his drink, staring down at the liquid, carefully controlling his strength so that he doesn’t accidentally crack the glass.

“I know,” Peter says, his voice coming out rough. “I remember.”

His name was Jack. He was an old friend of Tony’s.

Yeah, Peter remembers.

Jack sighs. It was quiet enough that it would have hardly been audible with all the music in the room if Peter’s hearing wasn’t enhanced.

“He was a good man,” Jack goes on, taking his drink when the bartender slides it over. He shakes his head, smiling wistfully, like he’s actually remembering it. Like he really knew. “A little rough around the edges, as you know. But then, lots of us are.” His mouth quirks up higher at the corner and he raises his glass toward Peter, winking. “Makes us fun to be around.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Peter bites out.

Mr. Stark was gone. Had been gone for more than four years. He’d missed Peter’s eighteenth birthday. He’d missed his high school graduation. He’d missed it when Peter’s identity had been revealed, when Peter had been on the run for _months_. He’d missed Peter’s acceptance to MIT, and Aunt May and Happy’s wedding.

He was missing Peter’s college graduation right now. 

Jack takes another drink, draining his glass. Idly, he says, “I can think of something else we could do.”

Peter looks at him again, meeting his eyes. After a minute, he puts down his glass and stands up. “Lead the way,” he says, because at this point, it’s probably the closest he’ll ever get to what he actually wants.

The hotel room Jack’s taken him back to is warm from a heater that was left too high, making sweat slide down the curve of his back and down the back of his knees. The window is open to let in a sliver of cold air, and the sharp difference in temperatures has his skin breaking out in goosebumps where the cold air seeps in.

The sheets under his legs where he’s kneeling on the bed are off-white, the comforter that they’d shoved off the bed an ugly floral pattern in muted yellows and browns. Jack stretches his neck out, a low, punched out moan falling from his mouth and Peter shifts his hips and thrusts forward again, holding one of Jack’s legs up to get the position just right.

Jack clutches the sheets, huffing out a laugh on the break of his moan, a stupid, pleased smile on his face as Peter rolls his hips, thrusting again, _again_ , reaching for the edge he can feel himself approaching. Jack isn’t exactly who he wants—or at all who he wants, really, but Peter is never going to get that, why is he even—but the tight heat surrounding him, the soft moans and softer laughter signaling a satisfied partner is enough in the moment.

Enough to get him out of his head if he just focuses on the way it feels. The heat of Jack’s skin, and the sound of his voice, and the friction of his thrusts. He closes his eyes, biting his lower lip, fucking into Jack harder, faster. He grips his leg just a little harder, lifting his hips just a little higher.

“Oh fuck,” Jack says, and Peter snaps his eyes open again as Jack’s back arches up. He’s lifted his arm to cover his face, his stomach and thigh muscles tensed and his cock twitching uncontrollably as he comes all over his stomach.

Peter isn’t a saint—the sight of it pushes him into a rough, staccato movement, his breathing harsh in the too-hot room. He pitches forward a moment later as he comes, catching himself with one fist on the mattress so that he doesn’t put all his weight on Jack, teeth clenched tightly as he comes inside of Jack.

He takes a minute to breathe, after, and then grimaces as he pulls out and deals with the condom, tying it off and throwing it in the trash bin across the room as he rolls over and spreads his sweaty limbs out. Goosebumps pebble along his shoulders and thighs.

“Nice aim,” Jack says off-handedly, and Peter grunts, eyes closed.

“You’re awfully quiet when you’re coming,” Jack keeps talking, and Peter breathes out a frustrated sigh. The after, the pillow talk, if that’s what it’s called, has never been his forte, but it’s probably rude to just get up and leave right after. He’s never sure what to do, how to exit gracefully without hurting someone’s feelings or pissing them off. And honestly, just the one disgruntled one-night-stand giving J. Jonah Jameson a tell-all interview the morning after is more enough to last him a lifetime.

At least her complaints had been about him sneaking out while she was sleeping, not that that had kept him from being too embarrassed to go to his classes for a week.

“Lots of practice,” he says, after a minute, and it’s true enough.

Jack hums and says, “Tony was never quiet. Laughed a lot.”

Something heavy falls to the pit of Peter’s stomach and he opens his eyes. The ceiling is splattered an off-white color. Something is stuck in his throat. Shit.

He sits up, reaching for his boxers and easing them quickly over his calves and thighs until his dick is covered and the band snaps against his waist. He grabs his jeans and t-shirt, shoving them on. He stuffs his socks in his pocket and shoves on his shoes.

“Kid,” Jack says from the bed, and the carefree pleasure is gone from his voice.

“Don’t,” Peter snaps. Jack is still just lying there, naked and slick with sweat, come drying on his stomach. “Don’t call me that. And don’t talk about—just don’t.”

Shit. Shit, shit, _shit_.

So much for clearing his head, he needs—he needs to smoke, or bury himself in work in the lab, or find a criminal he can hit—no. No, he can’t go on patrol when he feels like this, he might actually hurt someone.

Control your strength. Come on Peter. Breathe.

Fuck.

“Peter then,” Jack amends. “Try not to let it drown you.”

Peter clenches a fist.

“Strange things happen, Peter,” he goes on. “You never know what’s coming. Keep your head above the water, alright?”

“Yeah,” Peter answers, bitter and rude and he knows it and can’t stop anyway, “great advice. Thanks. I’ll get on that.”

He slams the door on his way out, and ignores the way his eyes burn.

He just wants to stop missing him.

He just wants it to _stop_.

Boston had been relatively quiet when it came to aliens, evil magicians, mutants, doombots and disgruntled ex-Stark Industries employees. Peter’s biggest villain had been his oral thesis date. Moving back to Queens, Peter gets a week with Aunt May before he’s swinging into a full-out war between the Kree and the Skrulls.

In the middle of Manhattan.

Because where else would a war between two alien races take place.

Peter’s not entirely sure what started it; but the consensus between the gathered Avengers seems to be take them all out, so Peter is webbing up everyone he sees—including, accidentally, Ant-Man at one point, and Scott says, “I’m hurt, Spider-Man, honestly hurt, I thought we had a camaraderie what with both of us being the bug guys—”

Peter laughs even as Captain America flies by and says, “Aliens on your left guys, come on,” and they have to get back to business.

A tree splinters out of the ground, breaking the concrete and cracking up the sides of the buildings on both sides of the street. It’s growing fast and angry and glows a bright gold color, but the leaves are black and dripping and smoke where they leak onto the ground.

Carol punches it, and everyone—Peter included—gets thrown backward by the force of it.

The only one who doesn’t is Dr. Strange, and it’s the green stone in his hand that’s keeping him there, tied to the tree even as the bark runs up his limbs like a poison in his veins. The stone glows, and then explodes in a burst of green light and black shreds of smoking bark and branches.

Six stones hover in the air, and Peter stares as nausea rises in his gut and he wants to hurl. One of the skrulls, the one with the _Fantastic Four_ ’s collective powers, leaps for the stones, and gets kicked in the face for his trouble when Cassie lurches forward, the only one of them that isn’t frozen, staring in sick horror at the resurrected Infinity Stones.

Even using one of the suits she’d stolen from her dad, Cassie’s giant size as Stature isn’t enough to do more than knock the skrull off course for more than a moment.

It’s enough for the rest of them to snap out of it and jump back into action though.

Peter propels himself forward with a rapid web release, reaching for the stones, but it’s Wong who snatches them before the skrull can, and then Peter stumbles to a stop, everything spinning and drifting out and then slamming back into him.

There, at the base of the dead tree, split open by the stones, lay two people.

A woman, dressed in black, red hair, forcing herself up even as she shakes from the effort. She’s covered in dirt and there’s blood in her hair, and she’s reaching for the man next to her.

The man who’s trying to sit up, who’s covered in dirt and grime and has blood running down the side of his face, and Peter realizes as his world narrows to that one, single view, a few strands of grey streaking through his hair.

He registers the dull thud of his knees hitting the ground, and then crawls forward, his fingers digging into the broken asphalt. He’s barely three feet away, and he hears Natasha say, “Tony, you’re alright?”

And then Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark’s _voice_ – “I think so. We’re alive?”

Peter chokes on the air, his throat tight and his vision black at the edges as he tries to breathe.

“Mr. Stark,” he forces out, and then Mr. Stark looks at him, and the battle is still going on around him, Kree and skrulls fighting and Peter can’t even register it when the stones are thrown, when they spin out in six different directions, streaks of color in the sky too fast to follow, to far to see.

Mr. Stark lifts an arm, and Peter falls forward, close enough to touch, and Mr. Starks fingers slide to the back of his neck, holding him as Peter presses his forehead to Mr. Stark’s, desperate and terrified and elated and _please, please let this be real_.

“Kid,” Mr. Stark says, and it sounds like a whisper more than anything, and then, “Peter,” and his name on Mr. Stark’s lips sounds like some sort of prayer. Peter blinks hard, his eyes wet and threatening tears, his throat tight with the inevitability of it.

Mr. Stark’s hand slips from the back of his neck to his face, cupping his cheek. He’s retracted the suit, and it’s dirt-covered rough fingers that are touching his skin.

Laughingly, what he says is, “Thank God you’re alive,” and Peter barks out a laugh and feels the tears start to slip down his cheeks and blur his vision. He brings a hand up, wiping at his eyes furiously, not wanting to miss anything. Not wanting to stop looking in case this all disappears again.

“I missed you,” Tony says, half a smile, and Peter can’t help but ask, “You did?”

Tony laughs, a breathless sound of relief and disbelief and says, “Five years without you, kid. Nobody ever—” His thumb brushes over Peter’s cheekbone slowly. “I’m in love with you. Of course I missed you.”

Peter’s heart stutters to a stop, or maybe it’s the opposite, going so fast that everything else stutters to a stop in comparison. He stares at Mr. Stark, sees him frown and close his eyes and drag his hand back from Peter’s face.

“Sorry, that’s—I wasn’t going to say that. Kid, I—”

“I’m not a kid anymore,” Peter blurts, and it’s true, it’s true, even if he’ll never get tired of the way Mr. Stark says it.

He pushes forward, asphalt shifting under his knees, and presses his mouth to Mr. Stark’s, and he pushes a hand into Mr. Stark’s hair and the other clings to the suit, and Mr. Stark’s mouth tastes like blood and soot and coffee and his lips are rough and chapped and dry and it’s perfect, it’s perfect, it’s perfect because Mr. Stark drags a hand over his waist and leans in and kisses him back.

They break apart and Peter presses his face into the curve of Mr. Stark’s neck, breathing him in and shaking in his arms. He doesn’t care how it happened. He just wants it to be real. Wants this, more than anything. Please, _please_ , just give him this.

The sound of repulsors hitting the ground next to them sound, but Peter doesn’t turn to look. He clings, unable to stop. _Please_.

Colonel Rhodes—Rhodey, he’d tried to get Peter to call him, back when he’d been the one keeping Peter hidden during the months he was on the run, but Peter had held his ground and refused—heaves a sigh.

“You’re dead for five years, and this is what happens five minutes after you get resurrected,” he says, voice tired. “Typical, Tony. Just typical. You two pining balls of misery deserve each other.”

But then the ground shifts, and hard, metal arms are surrounding Peter and Mr. Stark, and that’s fine too.

Mr. Stark laughs, and it sounds like he’s exhausted, but Peter feels exhausted too.

But it’s okay. Or at least, it’s the first time in years that Peter feels like maybe it _will_ be.

Three months later, the Avengers are hosting a party for Tony and Natasha—a big banner reads **_Happy Resurrection!_** in dark red letters—and Peter turns when Tony does, Tony’s arm around his shoulders even though Peter is taller than him now by a whole two inches.

Jack is grinning at them both, pleased as a cat, a glass of champagne in his hand. “I see congratulations are in order,” he offers up.

Tony laughs, incredulous, and says, “I don’t think you’ve aged a day. What do you do? Dark magic? Fountain of youth?”

Jack shrugs and says, “Oh, I’m immortal.”

“Sad thing is,” Tony says to Peter, “I think he might be telling the truth.”

Jack grins again, and then, “Well, with my congratulations out of the way, I have to say—I’ve had the pleasure of having slept with you both now. Any chance for another go of it?”

Tony chokes and coughs, and Peter groans through a rising flush.

“Uh, no,” Peter says, strangled. “Nope. We’re, ah—”

“Good,” Tony interjects, “we’re good. What do you mean, _slept with you both_?”

“Drinks,” Peter says, even though he has a full glass of champagne in his hand already that he hasn’t been drinking because champagne isn’t his favorite, and then, “Bye Jack,” and drags Tony towards the bar.

Tony raises an eyebrow and says, “Peter,” like a question.

“If you’re allowed to have old friends, then so am I,” Peter says, and then laughs at Tony’s affronted facial expression.

“I don’t like this sort of attitude on you,” Tony says, finally. “ _Old friends_. Nope. Don’t like it.”

“Don’t worry,” Peter hums. “You’re my favorite.”

“Of course I am,” Tony says, and signals the bartender for a new drink before tangling their fingers together so that their palms are touching. Peter grins.

Yeah, this is good. Everything is definitely going to be okay, for as long as this lasts.

And this time, he’s going to make sure it does.


End file.
